Ali Abdullah Saleh

Ali Abdullah Saleh al-Ahmar (, ʿAlī ʿAbdullāh Ṣāliḥ al-Aḥmar; 21 March 1942 – 4 December 2017) was a Yemeni politician who served as the first President of the Republic of Yemen, from Yemeni unification on 22 May 1990, to his resignation on 25 February 2012, following the Yemeni Revolution.

Ali Abdullah Saleh was born on 21 March 1942 to a poor family in Beit al-Ahmar village (Red House village) from the Sanhan (سنحان) clan (Sanhan District), whose territories lie some 20 kilometers southeast of the capital, Sanaa.

Saleh's father, Abdallah Saleh died after he divorced Ali Abdullah's mother when Saleh was still young.

His mother later remarried her deceased former husband's brother, Muhammad Saleh, who soon became Saleh's mentor and stepfather.

Saleh's brother Mohammed was a major general and had three children: Yahya, Tareq, and Ammar, who all served under Saleh during his rule.

Saleh's cousin, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar from the Al Ahmar family, which is also part of the Sanhan clan is often confused with the same-named leading family of the Hashid tribe, with which the Sanhan clan was an ally.

The Hashid tribe, in turn, belongs to the larger Yemeni parent group, the Kahlan tribe.

The clans Sanhan and Khawlan are said to be related.

Saleh received his primary education at Ma'alama village before leaving to join the North Yemeni Armed Forces in 1958 at the age of 11 as an infantry soldier and was admitted to the North Yemen Military Academy in 1960.

He participated in the Nasserist-inspired military coup of 1962, which was instrumental in the removal of King Muhammad al-Badr and the establishment of the Yemen Arab Republic.

Three years later, in 1963, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in armoured corps.

During the North Yemen Civil War, he attained the rank of major by 1969.

He received further training as a staff officer in the Higher Command and staff C Course in Iraq, between 1970 and 1971, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

He became a full colonel in 1976 and was given command of a mechanised brigade.

In 1977, the President of North Yemen, Ahmad al-Ghashmi, appointed him as military governor of Taiz.

After al-Ghashmi was assassinated on 24 June 1978, Colonel Saleh was appointed to be a member of the four-man provisional presidency council and deputy to the general staff commander.

On 17 July 1978, Saleh was elected by the Parliament to be the President of the Yemen Arab Republic, while simultaneously holding the positions of chief of staff and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Governance in the Middle East and North Africa: A Handbook describes Saleh as being neither from a "sheikhly family" nor a "large or important tribe" either, but instead rising to power through "his own means", and creating a patronage system with his family at the top.

His seven brothers were placed "in key positions", and later he relied on "sons, daughters, sons-in-law and nephews".

Beneath the positions occupied by his extended family, Saleh "relied heavily on the loyalty" of two tribes, his own Sanhan tribe and the Hamdan San'a tribe of his mentor, the late president al-Ghashmi.

The New York Times Middle Eastern correspondent Robert F. Worth described Saleh as reaching an understanding with powerful feudal "big sheikhs" to become "part of a Mafia-style spoils system that substituted for governance".

Robert Worth accused Saleh of exceeding the aggrandisement of other Middle Eastern strongmen by managing to "rake off tens of billions of dollars in public funds for himself and his family" despite the extreme poverty of his country.

On 10 August 1978, Saleh ordered the execution of 30 officers who were charged with being part of a conspiracy against his rule.

Despite early public skepticism and a serious coup attempt in late 1978, Saleh managed to conciliate most factions, improve relations with Yemen's neighbours, and resume various programs of economic and political development and institutionalization.

More firmly in power in the 1980s, he created the political organization that was to become known as his party, the General People's Congress (GPC), and steered Yemen into the age of oil.

In the late 1980s, Saleh was under considerable international pressure to permit his country's Jewish citizens to travel freely to places abroad.

Passports were eventually issued to them, which facilitated their unrestricted travel.

Saleh was promoted to major general in 1980, elected as the secretary-general of the General People's Congress party on 30 August 1982, and re-elected president of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1983.

The People's Constituent Assembly, which had been created somewhat earlier, selected Col. Ali Abdullah Saleh as al-Ghashmī’s successor.

Previously, he had served as President of the Yemen Arab Republic, or North Yemen, from July 1978, to 22 May 1990, after the assassination of President Ahmad al-Ghashmi.

Saleh developed deeper ties with Western powers, especially the United States, during the War on Terror.

Islamic terrorism may have been used and encouraged by Ali Abdullah Saleh in order to win Western support and for disruptive politically motivated attacks.

The decline of the Soviet Union severely weakened the status of South Yemen, a communist-originated state, and, in 1990, the North and South agreed to unify after years of negotiations.

The South accepted Saleh as President of the unified country, while Ali Salim al-Beidh served as the Vice President and a member of the Presidential Council.

He was succeeded by Abdrabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, who had been serving as vice president since 1994, and active-president since 2011.

In 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, which spread across North Africa and the Middle East (including Yemen), Saleh's time in office became increasingly precarious, until he was eventually ousted as President in 2012.

In May 2015, Saleh openly allied with the Houthis (Ansar Allah) during the Yemeni Civil War, in which a protest movement and subsequent insurgency succeeded in capturing Yemen's capital, Sanaa, causing President Abdrabbuh Mansur al-Hadi to resign and flee the country.

In December 2017, he declared his withdrawal from his coalition with the Houthis and instead sided with his former enemies – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and President al-Hadi.

On 4 December 2017, during a battle between Houthi and Saleh supporters in Sanaa, the Houthis accused Saleh of treason, and he was killed by a Houthi sniper.

Reports were that Saleh was killed while trying to flee his compound in a car; however, this was denied by his party officials, who said he was executed at his house.